Magdlyn

Spinning off from 2 threads.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=225743&page=4

and this old one:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...01#post3264401

I meant to just bump the older thread but I couldn't, it was too old.

In reference to No Robots' posts starting at #36, defending the authenticity of this controversial pericope:


No Robots' admiration and belief in the Church Fathers' apologia seems a bit extreme. You seem to be quite fond of this pericope, almost as if it has personal meaning for you.

I have a couple of objections to your defense of this pericope as authentic oral tradition.

I find it to be spurious and unlikely. Surely Jesus, Jewish son of God as John so strongly asserts, would've asked the "Pharisees" where the woman's lover was. He was, acc to the mitzvot, to have suffered the same punishment as the woman. Had misogyny advanced to such a degree by this century that the "Pharisees" and Jesus would have forgotten/dropped the symmetry of this ruling from YHWH? Perhaps, if we are assuming pious editing and later re-insertion, one of the accusing Pharisees himself was named as her lover (or not directly named but more clearly indicated than what we have now)... now that would earn him the epithet of hypocrite. But, that is just as much speculation as No Robots' beloved Fathers seem to be guilty of.

Next, as someone said, what else may have been edited from the Bible if scribes were so embarrassed by this passage? Surely, Lot's treatment of his daughters and their revenge is much more controversial, distasteful and questioning of God's standard to be called righteous in his eyes. :huh: How could any scribe be embarrassed at the aldultery pericope when familiar with that doozy?

What about the woman at the well, with her many "husbands"? Just as sexy, if not more. Jesus seems to shrug at the woman's colorful past. (BTW, why did the woman call Jesus a "Jew" ie: Judaean, when his Galilean accent should've given him away?)

There are plenty of more examples of Jesus' lax moral standards. What about getting his feet wiped in public by a woman's long sensual hair?

Perhaps you and the Fathers are reaching, No Robots.

Ray Moscow

To add what mens_sana posted on this subject:

All of this is evidence against it belonging in the gospel of John.

No Robots

With regard to my reasons for arguing for the pericope, I guess I don't really have any more to say about this than I already have. If you don't find the textual confirmation from Didymus the Blind convincing, I can't really argue. Have you even read the Wikipedia entry on the textual history?

I find this pericope fascinating for a number of metacritical reasons. First, it is fascinating to see how scribal attempts to supress the passage were thwarted by the honorable actions of Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome, who maintained the authenticity of the pericope. Here we have an example of scholars overcoming whatever religious or moralistic scruples they may have had in order to defend the integrity of the text. This contrasts with Ehrman, who on the one hand likes to insinuate in his popular works that the passage is inauthentic, while arguing the other side in his scholarly work.

Second, it is fascinating to see how Christians themselves actively and openly suppressed uncomfortable elements of Christ's teaching, what they supposedly believed was the unalterable word of God. If skeptics weren't so determined to undermine the NT as a whole, I would think they would find this to be significant, amusing and useful.

What is most fascinating to me, though, is the reaction of skeptics to this passage. They seem to be saying, "Aha! You see how all this crap is pure invention?" Nothing I say can ever shake them from their moment of triumph, I suppose.

For me, though, the textual history of the passage provides some insight into the early editorial history of the NT. It is curious to me that the skeptics who like to style themselves devotees of textual criticism are not delighted to have something that they can really sink their teeth into.

There is a kind of unity between the ancient scribes and the postmodern skeptics. Both try to suppress the passage in the name of their moralistic objectives, the former wanting to stamp out sexual deviance, the latter wanting to stamp out religion. I am inspired by Augustine, Ambrose and Jerome in their defence of the passage against their co-religionists; and I aim to stand by the passage against my own contemporaries.

I understand why it is important to the skeptics to establish the inauthenticity of the pericope: it helps them, they think, to undermine the inauthenticity of the NT as a whole. For them, it is clear evidence of an editorial addition to a fabricated text. For me, it is clear evidence of attempted editorial suppression of an authentic text. So it is just as interesting to me as to them, but for opposite reasons.

I can only speculate why this text was suppressed and not others. I guess that it is the explicitness of the charge of adultery that made the notoriously anti-sexual Christian scribes squeamish.

Ray Moscow

Yes. Interesting, and as I've said one can make an argument for its authenticity as you do, but on balance I think the evidence is against that.

No Robots

Agreed. But where did it come from? Where did it move around to? How did it persist in this maze of editorial highjinx? Truly a wonderful puzzle for textual critics, I should think.

mens_sana

More likely than any kind of "suppression" is the probability that it was seen as a Johannine pericope independent of the gospel — and considered "too good" to lose. If I remember correctly, this was something like Bruce Metzger's view.

No Robots

I'll stick with the testimony of Ambrose and Augustine.

Ray Moscow

Yes, these are wonderful and interesting questions to which I don't know the answers.

Unfortunately they were not textual critics and were not well positioned to advise us on these matters.

No Robots

They certainly were textual critics. These were the top scholars of the day, with intimate knowledge of the texts they were dealing with.

Ray Moscow

Is this the same Augustine who confused Plotinus for Plato? And who didn't read much Greek?

(not that I can criticise in regard to the latter)